The US President’s Speech: If The 1969 Moon Landing Had Failed

In the event that the 1969 moon landing failed, and the two Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin did not manage return to Earth, the White House had a memo and speech ready for the then-President of the United State Richard Nixon.

The memo drafted by President Nixon’s chief of staff H R Halderman featured a list of instructions for the President—one of which was to call the widows-to-be, and another was to deliver a speech to the United States.

Entitled ‘In Event Of Moon Disaster’, the moving speech—drafted by Bill Safire—starts off with the sentence: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.”